


Experience

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Ageplay, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, May-December
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-10
Updated: 2011-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fernando likes older men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Experience

**Author's Note:**

> Set around the British GP during the 2009 season.

Martin is late.

Fernando doesn’t mind. He sits at a table tucked away in a restaurant situated in a discreet part of Oxfordshire, and he waits. He’s happy to do so. It’s unusual that he has to wait for anything, but for some people he’ll wait with endless patience. For some men. Two men, he’d thought, but this evening he adds a third name to the list. It’s not a surprise, but it wasn’t something he’d expected, and so he’s content to wait, letting the anticipation build.

His phone beeps. A text message from Martin. _Nearly there. Sorry to keep you waiting_. No text speak, no emoticons. Just two plain sentences. How very like him. Fernando smiles and sets down the phone.

A waiter comes over and offers to fetch a refill. Fernando nods, accepts the frosted beer when it’s brought to him, takes a sip from the bottle before he pours it into the long glass. Low calorie lager, low alcohol content, yet already he feels giddy. He takes another sip and watches the time change on the screen of his phone. He hasn’t even glanced at the menu yet. He doesn’t need to. Martin will take care of that when he arrives.

Fernando has always liked older men. He finds it funny that Sebastian is so taken with Christian Horner, who’s only fourteen years older than Sebastian. They’re almost contemporaries. The age gap there is barely anything. Fernando can’t understand what the attraction is. Fourteen years is not enough, not nearly enough. How can Sebastian look up to someone with such a stunning lack of experience? In a few years, especially if Sebastian wins the championship, he’ll measure his own talent against Christian’s and will find his mentor wanting.

It shouldn’t be like that. The mentor, the team boss—he should always be in the position of greater power, greater experience. That’s their attraction, or at least that’s their attraction for Fernando. He likes the fact that he can be caught out, called out; likes that he’s made to feel responsible for his actions when anyone else would let him get away with anything and everything.

Not that he hasn’t tried to get away with anything and everything, because he has. Oh, how he’s tried. And the best thing about older men, about team bosses, is that they’ll let him get just far enough to feel wicked and disobedient, and then they’ll slap him down. Sometimes it hurts, his punishment, but it’s necessary. It makes him learn. It makes him stronger. Flavio always said the experience of punishment would bring its own rewards in time.

Fernando has never been able to please Flavio. He’s always felt off-kilter, unbalanced; he’s always tried so hard to please, but Flavio is never satisfied. That’s good, though—it means Flavio expects more of him. Flavio knows, with the accumulated wisdom of his years, that Fernando has more to give.

Just sometimes, Fernando wishes Flavio could be a little kinder, a little softer. For all his public bonhomie, Flavio is brutal. He’s nothing more than a wealthy peasant, a volatile mix, and his actions are informed by that dichotomy. He has an explosive temper and a long memory. Fernando drinks his beer and remembers the arrogance and pride of his youth, when he first started driving in F1. Flavio had told him that the world would be at his feet. Fernando believed him. Only later did he realise that Flavio wanted the world for himself and had no intention of sharing it.

Fernando puts down his glass, stares at the dull glint of silverware on the table. He still feels unpolished somehow. Flavio left him unfinished. Not long now and he’ll be thirty. He’s been in F1 for eight years. It doesn’t feel like eight years; it feels longer, shorter; distances flicker, time kaleidoscopes. He remembers what it felt like to win championships, one, two of them. They feel like a long time ago. Back then, when he was winning, he thought it’d be easy. Thought he’d keep on winning. But Michael got in the way, and then there were others, and it was never time for him again. Not even when he swapped Flavio for Ron.

McLaren should have been perfect. Ron has two drivers but loves only one of them. Of all the teams on the grid, McLaren is the least democratic. Ferrari might have been obvious in its support of Michael, but within McLaren, Ron’s love pours over his favoured driver like precious balm. After Flavio’s fickleness, his push-me-pull-you attitude, Fernando wanted Ron’s steadfastness. Once Ron has a favourite, he never lets go. Only death or retirement can break those bonds. Fernando longed for that stability, looked forward to basking in the warmth of Ron’s approval.

But Lewis was there first. And Lewis was everything that Fernando wasn’t, and Ron’s head was turned—of course it was, how could it be otherwise? Ron had practically raised Lewis, plucking him out of the junior formulae and moulding him to be the perfect driver. Ron’s attention was fixed elsewhere even as Fernando signed the contract.

Fernando tried to reclaim Ron’s interest, but then he’d never had it in the first place. He played up, provoked Lewis, hated Lewis, and Lewis acted like a child and went running to Daddy, and then to his other daddy. Fernando likes older men but he’s never wanted a father figure. Lewis’s pandering to Ron’s obsession was obvious and disgusting. Fernando didn’t want it to be like that. It should have been different, but Ron’s personality is tight and mean and cold towards the outsider, and Fernando couldn’t bear to live without the warmth of his approval.

Now he’s back with Flavio, who exudes magnanimity but keeps score, waiting, expecting, wielding his disappointment like a lash.

Fernando can’t pretend any more. He needs someone, someone older, someone who’ll understand him, someone who won’t let him get away with it but who won’t judge him, either. Someone who isn’t Flavio, who isn’t Ron. He’s chosen Martin, because Martin is different. The age gap is a mere twenty-three years.

There’s a flurry of movement at the restaurant door. A waiter springs forward to assist the guest with his coat, to take his umbrella. Martin brushes water droplets from the front of his suit. The rain has darkened his hair, turned silver into grey. His face lights up when he sees Fernando, then his expression turns comically tragic. “So sorry. Traffic. And there were a few things—” He stops himself.

Fernando feels a shadow fall between them. Lewis, he supposes. Lewis had questions, demands, ruffled feathers that Martin needed to smooth. Perhaps this is a bad idea. Fernando doesn’t want to be second best again. Not to Lewis. Not to anyone.

Martin looks through the menu, his attention careful. The waiter returns and hovers beside the table. At length Martin glances up, gaze fixed on Fernando. “What would you—”

Fernando interrupts him. “Please.” The word encompasses so much yet gives away so little.

There’s a flicker of surprise in Martin’s eyes, but he covers it, turns again to the menu and takes his time, keeps the waiter there a few minutes longer. Finally he orders for them both, just like the older man should, and his choice is measured, deliberate, and entirely to Fernando’s taste.

Martin looks over, raises his eyebrows. It’s a comment, not a question, so Fernando dips his head and feels gleeful that they’re both here, and together, and—

“Why did you invite me tonight?” Martin asks. He shifts his empty wine glass out of the way, pushes Fernando’s beer aside, eliminating these small barriers between them. “Not that it isn’t absolutely delightful, and I’m gratified that you did, but—why?”

Fernando holds his gaze. “To see if you would come.”

“Well, yes. Obviously I would.” Martin smiles, a quick flash of admiration. “It’s you. Of course I’d come.”

The honesty of that statement takes Fernando’s breath away. He studies the tablecloth, silenced by longing for this man’s approbation.

The waiter brings a bottle of sparkling water. Conversation at the table is muted by the knowledge that they’ll be interrupted soon by the arrival of the food. They talk about the weather. Their meals are brought over and they eat in companionable silence. Martin eats slowly. Fernando eats fast. Maybe it’s because he’s hungry. Or because he’s nervous. Or...

Martin smiles, gestures with his fork. “You want to win in everything you do.”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t win all the time. You shouldn’t win all the time. It’s the hardest lesson anyone can learn.” He returns to his food, gaze down.

Fernando considers this. He knows he can’t win all the time. He’s had that proven to him over and over again. But he’s never believed it. Flavio never told him it was okay for him to lose once in a while. Ron didn’t care when he was beaten. Fernando thinks of how hard he’s been trying, how important it is for him to gain their approval.

“You think it’s good that I lose?”

Martin lifts his head. “Yes. Otherwise how can you appreciate winning?”

Fernando frowns at this. He’s always viewed winning and losing as two extremes, one good, the other bad. That’s how Flavio presented it. Martin seems to be suggesting a different mindset. A middle ground. The thought is troubling, intriguing. Fernando shakes his head and a lock of hair falls forward into his eyes.

Martin reaches out and, almost as an afterthought, brushes back the lock of hair.

Fernando goes still. He stares at Martin, feeling his pulse accelerate and his body react. Oh, God. He’d thought he could handle it, this hankering for approval from a man older and distant and distinguished. Martin isn’t Flavio, isn’t Ron. Martin has the same steely authority but his eyes are kind rather than judgemental, and he has a softness to him that Fernando has never seen before.

Martin withdraws his hand, a blush tingeing his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “That was unforgiveable. All the same, do forgive me.”

Bewildered, Fernando stares at the scrapings of sauce on his plate. The British and their polite turns of phrase never cease to confuse him. It’s easier in Spanish. Everything would be easier if he could just stick to what he knows, but still he keeps coming back to these emotionally withdrawn older men—Flavio, Ron, Martin...

He reaches for his beer, angry when his hand trembles. The lager soothes his parched throat and he feels stronger.

The waiter collects their plates, offers dessert, coffee, but they don’t want it. Fernando asks for the bill. Martin pays it.

Outside, it’s still raining. They stand in the car park, equidistant between their vehicles. Martin holds onto his umbrella but doesn’t open it. Their feet are almost in a puddle, and the lights from the restaurant are reflected in the water, glisten across the wet tarmac.

“This weather,” Fernando says. “It’s so English.”

Martin faces him. “Did you want to tell me something?”

“I... No. But thank you.” Now Fernando feels shy, awkward, conscious that he has a hundred things to say but unable to say even one. He breathes in the damp air of the British summer and exhales. “I enjoyed this very much. I feel happy.”

Martin is looking at him with genuine warmth. “I’m glad I’ve made you happy. That’s all I—we—ever wanted, you know. I’m afraid Ron was never very good at expressing his feelings.”

Fernando turns his head. He doesn’t want to think about Ron now. He looks back at Martin. “Thank you for dinner. For coming here. For talking to me. For listening.”

“You’re welcome.” Rain runs down Martin’s face. His hair is wet again, darker than before. He pauses, almost smiles, hesitates. “I should never have let you go.”

They stand there and stare at one another. Fernando breathes. They were talking about the team. The team, Fernando reminds himself, nothing else. It wasn’t personal. It couldn’t be personal. He can’t let himself believe that it might be anything else. He puts his hands in his pockets, feels the weight of his car keys. “It wasn’t your decision.”

“Nevertheless, it remains one of the greatest regrets of my life.” Martin smiles now, really smiles, and it’s like the sun at midnight. “Actually, it’s the only regret.”

Fernando manages to laugh. “Many people have told me they regret working with me or being with me. I think this is the first time anyone has ever said they regretted me leaving.”

“Hindsight is a funny thing,” Martin says gently. “Imagine if we knew everything in advance of our actions. Nothing would ever get done.”

Fernando straightens. “I don’t regret anything. Not even the things that hurt me.”

Martin reaches out. “Fernando...”

“No.” Fernando isn’t even sure what he’s saying, why he’s saying it. He hunches his shoulders against the rain. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I needed the experience.”


End file.
